she's published more than 60 books, and has won the booker prize twice. the winner of the first booker prize of the 2ist century, margaret atwood. cheering and applause. her stories often centre on oppression and brutality. most famously, her 1985 novel, the handmaid's tale, a dystopian vision of america, in which women are enslaved. now an emmy award—winning television series. there's an eye in your house. in this episode of this cultural life, the radio 4 programme, she reveals her formative influences and experiences. and how even in high school, her creativity was clear. i put on a home economics opera. it was about fabrics. can you remember how it goes? # fabrics need a swim in the suds. # it makes them feel just like new. # plink—plink, plink—plink. i want to make sure

the mics are recording us. margaret atwood, welcome to this cultural life. thank you very much. happy to be here. on this programme, i ask my guests to choose the most significant influences and experiences that have shaped their own creativity. and your first choice is your parents. yes. tell me about your parents. well, first of all, they, um...were very innovative and able to improvise.

because, of course, if you live in the woods and there aren't any shops, you have to be. and they were both very outdoorsy. but they also allowed us to make messes in our rooms and didn't make us clean them up. by messes, i mean projects. which always begin as messes. just to set the scene, this is rural quebec. because your father was an entomologist. he was studying... oh, yes. he was a forest entomologist. and his research station spring, summer and fall, was up in the woods north, north, north, north, north of ottawa, up the ottawa river. and this would be in a house that he built himself because he was of a rural background and knew how to do all of that. and, um...therefore, he had a lot of edged tools, which we used to play with as children.

edged tools? yeah. sharp—edged tools? yes. you know, and other things, like hammers. things you could do yourself a serious injury with if you weren't careful with them. and your mother was a scientist, as well? she was a dietician. so this would have been the �*30s and �*40s. so i think she was a dietician simply because it was a job you could get in the depression. she wasn't very interested in any of that, frankly. so, this was a really rural upbringing you had, for most of...? rural makes us think of farms. right. we're not talking farms. more remote than that? we're talking wolves. actually, we're more likely to be talking bears, cos you would be more likely to see a bear. did you? oh, yes. and you heard the wolves? yes. what does that do for your creative imagination? well, you just know they're there. it gives you respect.

and you don't send very small children out into the woods by themselves, because they're bite—sized. so you had to be on your guard. you had to be aware there was danger...? respectful. you had to be respectful. did that make you a tough kid? er. . .tough is relative. so tough in relation to that kind of thing, yes. um...tough in relation to... well, for instance, what was frightening to me as a small child, flush toilets. things went down them and never came back. you didn't know where they went! so itjust depends what you're used to, doesn't it? and, er...what you take...what you take for granted. so cities are actually a lot less safe. you're hit by a car at any moment. um... so out in the woods, as long as you're respectful and always look behind to see where you've just been, then you won't get lost. i mean, my big fear would be a bear, but you're still thinking back to a flushable toilet. are you suggesting you didn't have flushable toilets

when you were out in the woods? of course we didn't. we didn't have electricity. you can't have a flush toilet without electricity, just saying. so when you first came across a flushable toilet, that was back in the city? well, as a small child. yes, in the city. because we didn't stay out there in the winter. i also read that you were, er... you weren't sent to formal school until you were 12. so you were...? so, craft work, then? oh, we didn't call it that, dear. that's a new—fangled term. did you call it anything, or was itjust the stuff...? making stuff. yeah. and we had the full...the full run of the tool set, you know. that was very handy. a few years later, when you self—published your first book... yes. a book of poetry, double persephone, um... a very limited run, and i think you made... your hand—printed and set... typeset... yeah. it was a flat bed press, so you had to set each page. and the fonts were a bit limited, and we had to, um...set the poem, run it through and then disassemble it and do the next one. and i did the cover

with a lino block print. mmm. do you have one of these books? yes, but i should have kept more. that's a real serious margaret atwood rarity now, isn't it? your next choice for this cultural life is your brother's novels, which he wrote between the ages of seven and nine, you told us. so...so what were these stories? he was very prolific. yeah. he even had, in the inside of one of the covers, "by the same author", and then he put the other books he had written. oh, yes, they were adventure stories, and illustrated. and at the beginning, they all concerned his imaginary world, which was at war constantly, because, of course, it was the war. hmm. and, um...we traded our coloured pencils. he traded me the pink, the silver and the gold, useful for princesses, and i traded him the red, the orange and the yellow, useful for explosions. hmm. there were a lot of explosions in his books. hmm. so, these were...his books with his name on them. oh, yes. were you contributing, as well? were you a co—author? no, i was not a co—author. i'd made some rather wimpy, er...kind of not nearly as violent and kind

of smiley books of my own. really? i was almost three years younger, so they're much more rudimentary. it doesn't sound like you at all. well, you know, i became... i matured as an author. so, i did write my first full novel at about seven, and it was about an ant. and did you at some point at school, when you're looking forward in life and thinking, you know, i'm going to have to, at some point, be a grown—up and have a job, at what point...? oh, that comes much later. i don't think you're thinking in that way at all when you're seven. no. when i entered what we would call high school, they gave you a book called guidance. we had it in class, called guidance, which was supposed to be guiding us to our future, um...careers. hmm. so there were lots of future careers for boys. so doctors, lawyers, you know, rocket scientists

and what have you. and there were five for girls. let's see if you can guess what they were. secretary? yes. nurse? yes. teacher? yes. got it. ok, that's three. that's three. er...| don't know, was it housewife? did that count? that's not a career. that was considered a career. er...yes, but domestic science. 0k. otherwise known as home economics. home economics. right. and the fifth one, which is a bit surprising that early, it was...it was airline stewardess. oh, right, of course. so, which box did were you ticking at that age? well, i was a mercenary little child. the one that made the most money at that time was.... was the home economist. ah, right. so although i was not really very interested, um... i took that in high school instead of what i should have taken, which was secretarial sciences. i should have taken typing. what was the result? i still cannot touch—type. i have to look.

was there...was there a moment, though, where you suddenly thought, "actually, i need to write?" oh, yes. that would be when i was 16. er... yes, i started writing at that time more than i had been. we had to write a certain amount in school anyway. we had to write essays. mm. and in those days, we had to read quite long novels in school. so thomas hardy was a feature. we had a shakespeare play a year, and, um...that was of great use in later life. but particularly, we had a dramatic group that would come to the school called the earl grey players. and they would put on plays that were in the curriculum. you were doing a bit of acting as well, then? oh, i was doing some acting, because it was the age of skits. people did a lot of skits. so what i eventually did with home economics was i put on a home economics opera. what?! how does that play out...? well, it played out like this.

the well—meaning, but rather humourless, um... home economics teacher made the mistake of letting us vote on a special project. hmm. this is the downside of democracy. so we could vote on it. and she wanted us to vote on making stuffed animals for sick children in hospitals. a very worthy project, but i felt, why not just buy them? i knew about those curved seams. i wanted to have nothing to do with them. er...we�*d already done smocking, that was enough of that. so i subverted part of the class and got them to vote on the home economics opera. she was a little bit dismayed by that, but because it was a vote, she said, yes, we could do it, as long as it was on a home

economics subject. so it was. it was about fabrics. orlon, nylon and dacron were their names. who was writing the songs? er. . . me. i used pre—existing melodies so people would actually be able to sing them. operatic melodies or pop songs? no, dear, just any old melodies i could get my hands on. one of them was a... oh, a mangling of the barcarolle from tales of hoffmann. hmm. it was about washing. right. can you remember how it goes? # fabrics need a swim in the suds. # it makes them feel just like new. # plink—plink, plink—plink. it goes on from there. so, did you perform, as well? yes, of course. yeah? you were...? yes, i played orlon. 0k. yes, i performed, i directed. hmm. your next choice for this cultural life is reading

sci—fi in the cellar when you were supposed to be doing your homework. and especially reading george orwell. when did you first come across orwell, then? well, my dad liked science fiction because he was a scientist and he used to get a big kick out of it. hmm. so he had quite a collection. but i first read animal farm cos it was in the house, my dad had it. hmm. and i thought it was going to be, "oh, good, animals! "just like wind in the willows." talking animals? talking animals. what fun! er...but this is not what it was. and of course, i didn't understand that it was an allegory of the soviet union at that time, based on the show trials and so forth. um... because you were, what — nine, ten...? yeah. i had no knowledge of those things. so itjust ruined me, because here were these nice animals and they...and they came to tragic ends. and it was very, very upsetting. when it came to 1984, then, what was it about that book that gripped you so much? having been born in 1939, two months after the onset of world war ii, i've always

been pretty interested in dictatorships. and also, world war ii. mm. er... so by the time i got round to being plunged into history, which would be in the �*50s, i had a context for...for all of this. er...and one of my... one of the things that has occupied me really quite a lot over time is, how did these dictatorships get going, and how did they maintain themselves? and also, how do they fall apart when they fall apart? so i've been pretty interested in that, really, for a long time. and, um...my father was also a big reader of history, and so, i read the churchill books probably when they first came out. how important was it to you at the time, reading 1984? i mean, i presume... oh, it made a huge impact. huge? yes. and i...and i thought of it, um... my first reaction to it was the one that everybody has — this is a really gloomy book and it's very pessimistic. but, um...thinking about it

later, i realised that he'd put this coda at the end. and it's a very hopeful thing, because it's a...an essay on newspeak, written in standard english in the past tense. hmm. so the message is, it ended. it fell. the regime... it was gone in some way. we're not told how, but we know it's gone because here are people writing about it as if it's in the past. and the same thing happens at the end of the handmaid's tale... yes. now, that... when the reader realises... yes. ..that the narrative that has played out is being discussed at a symposium sometime in the future. so you come to the same conclusion, that the regime... well, i... ..has fallen. i mean, that's my model. and that's how you deal with, um...knowledge that you can't put in the main narrative. the handmaid's tale became, in effect, your generation's 1984. well, maybe, sort of... but, you know, at the time, it wasn't considered very plausible... hmm. ..by many. so, in 1985, it was not seen as a real possibility. that's interesting — you wrote it in 1984. idid. isn't that corny?

not only that, i was writing it in west berlin, surrounded by the wall. living in west berlin, you were, i presume, very aware of what was happening on the other side of that wall. yes. yes, they made sonic booms every sundayjust to remind us that they were there. and you were writing the handmaid's tale in berlin at that time and that atmosphere, that — that sense of difference was then feeding into the words that you were writing? yeah. more, more through actually visiting those places. so, we went to, um, east germany — that was easy for us, we were canadians. then there was czechoslovakia. fairly tightly sewed up but you can talk to people as long as you went into a field. and then, there was poland, which was already pretty loosey—goosey. so, those experiences of talking to people who had to be very careful about what they said, and you had to be very careful about what you repeated. it was veryjohn le carre.

er, the whole thing, very familiar. so, that's creating an atmosphere, i presume, in the narrative? yes. that sense of a repressive society. and you have orwell, who has kind of led the way and he's there in your imagination, as well, i presume. but what was the start — what was the catalyst for writing the handmaid's tale? the election of ronald reagan in 1980. reagan: with god's help, we can and will resolve - the problems which now confront us. and, after all, why shouldn't we believe that? we are americans. applause. god bless you, and thank you. at which there was a big pushback against what the �*70s had been doing, particularly in the expansion of — of women's rights. so, �*70s quite expansionist. you could have your own credit card. chuckles.

stuff like that. and then, you get this pushback, and that was when they started activating the evangelical religious right as a political force. significant also is the fact that i had studied 17th century american puritanism as a graduate student in the early �*60s, and i get to say bad things about those people because they are my ancestors. so, the family... literally. literally, yes, literally, they were puritan new englanders. but it's interesting that you witness what's happening in germany, ronald reagan is elected, so you start imagining the possibilities of a future totalitarian american regime but then, you reach back. well, these regimes are never made out of whole cloth. they're always based on something that was there before. they change the outfits, the names, the flags

and the slogans, but it's — it's the same, um, infrastructure. so, what would the americans have? they'd go back to the puritans. that's my — that is certainly my theory. it was my theory in the 1980s and you can see it in action 110w. that's what they want. it's what the right wing wants. it wants a hierarchical puritan theocracy. which is why the handmaid's tale has taken on new resonance and relevance in recent years, but also... i didn't do it. chuckles. but it has also, of course, taken on new life in the form of a television series, so a whole new generation of viewers now. what was the biggest challenge for you in seeing that adapted for the screen? ok, you think i have any control or power, don't you? chuckles. maybe a bit. no, i don't. i have maybe some influence. yeah. so, here's the actual story of what really happened. we made a film in 1989. today, only one out of 100

women can still bear children. and some women stopped. believing there would be no future, they refused. refused to bear children! they wouldn't even try! they were lazy women! and we — we were launching it right at the moment when the berlin wall was coming down. newsreel: the moment berliners have waited - 28 years for. chanting. cheering. a symbolic breach in the structure that separated millions and claimed hundreds of lives. so, we had launched it in west berlin and it was the usual aesthetic conversation afterwards — the direction, the sets, the acting and so forth. then, we went across and showed it in east berlin, which was the first time any such thing had happened since world war ii, and the audience there was very different. watched it very intently. said, "this was our life,"

meaning you couldn't trust anybody and people are constantly ratting each other out. so that contract for that film contained a series television, um, arrangement. and in those days, series television was dallas, or it was daytime soap. and the thought that anybody in that period would make a television show out of the handmaid's tale, the thought was — was, possibility, zero. that's never going to happen. the film was sold to a distributor, the distributor eventually went belly up, assets were dispersed, the contract disappeared. so, people came for a year saying, "can we make something "out of the handmaid's tale again?" and we would have to say, "we don't know who's "got the contract."

we really didn't. wow! then, somebody opened a drawer at mgm and there was the contract. just when series television streaming started up, which is a perfect way of doing a longer novel. and that led to an led to an appetite for... that led to... ..serious, gritty drama...? that led to the possibility of this happening. blessed be the fruit. may the lord open. and the showrunner was a guy called bruce miller who had read this in high school and he promised himself that when he grew up, he was going to make the handmaid's tale. so, he knew everything about it and talked himself into thejob. are you surprised, or maybe disturbed, at the continuing relevance 40 years after you wrote that book? well, it had periods of not being so relevant. so, it's newly relevant because of political changes in the united states.

we go everywhere in twos. supposed to be for our protection, for companionship. there are no friends here. can't be. the truth is we're watching each other. in terms of your life and your influence and what you've been discussing tonight, almost at odds with some of the themes of the novels, which explore, you know, the really dark aspects of humanity and the human experience — totalitarianism, rape and murder and all of these things. what — what compels you to immerse yourself? i don't particularly immerse myself, you know, ijust read the newspapers. blame it on the bbc news. laughs. ijust like to read. well, i do research the details because if you don't and you get them wrong, you are going to get a letter beginning, "you idiot..." and nowadays, it wouldn't be a letter, it would be somebody yelling at you on social media. there's never been one person's truth in a margaret atwood novel, whether it's the blind assassin or alias grace

or the handmaid's tale. and your narrators, your protagonists are rarely what they seem at first. that instinct to almost pull the rug underneath the reader's expectations, where does that come from, do you think? well, ithink it comes from writing. it comes from writing novels. so — or it comes from storytelling. so, you don't want the first five pages of your book to give away the entire plot, do you? i don't, particularly if it's a murder mystery. i don't want to think, "oh, well, i know who did that. "it's very obvious." so, hook me in. present me with a mystery. make me want to know more. and that's a good beginning of a book. "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times." "oh, tell me more! "in what way?" "the past is another country.

"they do things differently there." "how differently?" "it was a bright, cold day in april and the clocks "were striking 13." which brings us back to george orwell. yes, it does. more than — well, it's around six decades since you first read him but in your most recent collection of short stories, you summon him up from beyond the grave. you have an imagined conversation via a medium talking and it is, we presume, margaret atwood in conversation. yes. it's called margaret atwood. the character is called margaret atwood. yes, yes. yes. chuckles. an imagined conversation, of course. dead giveaway. he's still — he's still very important to you? yes, and i'm allowing him to smoke in the afterlife because i'm a kind person. you're now in your 80s, margaret, and you're still as prolific as ever. what — what drives you on creatively? well, what else am i going to do all day? you know what samuel beckett said? "why do you write?" he said, "not good for anything else". chuckles.

it's too late for me to be a ballet dancer. oh, alas, a vanished career. well, i'm a freelancer, you know? and that's a good thing because i don't have a boss. you are your own boss. continue to be. very enviable. margaret atwood, thank you so much for sharing your cultural life with us. thank you. voice-over: and for podcast episodes of this cultural life, | go to bbc sounds or wherever you get your podcasts. hello. it is shaping up to be a very unsettled and autumnal week of weather with some strong winds and some heavy rain. and talking of heavy rain on sunday, parts of south west england had

localised flash flooding because of some really intense downpours and thunderstorms that drifted up from the south. you can see the shower clouds there on our earlier satellite picture. we've also got a couple of different frontal systems pushing in from the west. so whichever way you slice it, quite a wet start to monday for many of us. still some hefty showers across parts of eastern england first thing. then here comes our band of rain, some particularly wet weather across parts of scotland. behind our rain bands, we see a mixture of sunny spells and showers. some of those could be on the heavy side. and also behind our rain band, a cooler, fresherfeel. so temperatures north to south, 13 to 20 degrees. so cool and fresh as we head into monday night, some clear spells, still some showers. and then here comes our next weather system, a zone of cloud and outbreaks of heavy rain across northern ireland, south west scotland, northwest england, parts of wales. turning very mild down towards the south west, rather chilly across north eastern parts of scotland.

so here comes our next frontal system for tuesday that is going to bring some heavy bursts of rain, particularly wet, i think over high ground in southwest scotland, northwest england and parts of wales. to the south of that, some patchy rain and a fair amount of cloud. but it is going to be windy, particularly for england, wales, northern ireland. inland spots could see gusts of 50 miles per hour. around some of the coasts the winds could be a little bit stronger than that. temperature wise, well we could get to 20 or 21 degrees if the cloud breaks at all eown towards the south of england and south wales. tuesday night into wednesday, we see all these white lines, all these isobars on the chart, that shows us that it is going to be windy still, windy on wednesday, particularlyjust ahead of this band of cloud and rain, this cold front which will be pushing its way southwards and eastwards through the day. to the north and west of that, well, we see a mix of sunny spells and showers returning — temperatures of 14 to 22 degrees. for the end of the week it does stay very unsettled showers or longer spells of rain and it will often be windy, particularly

in the northwest of the uk as we head into next weekend.

welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, i'm arunoday mukharji. lets get you the headlines. top us and chinese officials are being what have been called frank and constructive talks on the island of malta. broadcasters who employed russell brand have launched investigations, after rape and sexual assault allegations, which he denies.

emergency action over migration is promised by the president of the european commission on a visit to the italian island of lampedusa. the antarctic sea—ice has declined to its lowest winter level on record — according to satellite data. live from our studio in singapore, this is bbc news. it's newsday. hello, and welcome to the programme. the chinese foreign minister wang yi has met with white house national security adviserjake sullivan for two days of talks in malta. the discussions come as the world's two largest economies look to stabilise troubled relations. little of substance is being said publicly by either side, but we do have this from a senior us official stressing the effort